Ghosts and Lovers Read online

  She stroked her lover’s hair. “The only riot you cause is the one in my panties.”

  He grinned. “Hmm, I’ll treasure that little unsolicited testimonial.”

  “You do that.” She looked out the office window. The busy street below rumbled with traffic as the town of Kings Lynn went about its day. “This isn’t the place to show you just how much fuss you raise in me. I’ll have to leap on you when the time and place is right. Take a rain check?”

  “I’ll take you up on that.” He kissed her hand and then stood. “Now, we can do a little shopping and head back to the hall. Time, circumstances, and raging hormones permitting, we’ll take a look at that ruin on the grounds.”

  They thanked the archivist on their way out.

  Claudia giggled as they approached the car. “The grounds…Well, we could always make love outdoors.”

  “That gets my vote.” Martin grinned.

  * * * *

  Paul glared at the director. “What the fuck, Henry?”

  “It’s not working, dear.” Henry Mandel lit a cigarette, drew upon it, and blew the smoke out to one side as he regarded Paul. “Your character isn’t working. We’ll have to write you out of the script before we shoot too much footage.”

  Paul felt like tearing out his hair. “But Christ on a crutch! I’ve given you three weeks of filming already. Surely you could’ve told me before now? I’ve got commitments!”

  Henry was shaking his head before he’d even finished talking. “I’m sorry, but that’s your problem, not ours.” He waved a hand in a conciliatory manner. “Look, it’s no reflection on your work. You know how it is. You read for a part, audition and all that crap. Everything seems fine and we go ahead. Then we get a few days into shooting, and it becomes obvious we made a mistake.”

  “A few days? Three weeks, I said!”

  “It doesn’t matter. We’ll call your agent, pay what you’re owed, but as of now you’re off the production.” He nodded and turned away. “Excuse me. I have work to do.”

  Mandel walked away. Paul stared after him until he disappeared among the cast’s trailers. A few curious and even sympathetic glances came his way from the production staff, but he didn’t care about those. He could only think of how extended his financial situation was. “Oh fuck!”

  He headed out to the parking lot and got into his BMW. Sitting and staring at the Newcastle skyline, he drummed his fingers on the wheel and thought hard. Paul jumped as his cell phone rang. Checking the display he saw his agent’s name there. “Ah, crap.” He let it ring until the voicemail activated.

  “There’s only one thing you can do, my boy,” a drink-soaked voice whispered in his ear.

  Paul jumped and spun around in his seat, thinking someone had broken into the car and hidden in the back seat. It was empty. “Who’s there?”

  “A friend. You’ll have to get back with that girl of yours, won’t you?” The voice took on a scratchy quality. “Damn that miserable thing!” The cell phone rose from the seat, wobbled in the air for a second then pitched onto the floor mat. “Can’t abide them, they make me itch!”

  “Who the fuck are you? Where are you?” Paul felt his skin crawl as he looked about wildly.

  “You heard me! Get those wretched ghost hunters out of my house and recover your lover. Call that other girl of yours, get her help. I’ll help where I can, too. Ahhh…”

  Paul sat, rigid with shock and fear. Yet in the midst of his terror he felt a rush of air as if someone had just departed the car. Fumbling with the keys, he started the BMW, taking some comfort from the powerful purr of the engine. Thrusting the stick shift into gear, he roared out of the parking lot with a screech of tires on tarmac and headed for the M1 motorway. He felt the urge to put some mileage between himself and whatever spirit had come with him to Newcastle.

  * * * *

  Bright afternoon sunlight filled the world as Martin and Claudia returned to Tennington Old Hall. The old house appeared much mellower to Claudia’s eyes as they pulled up in front of the door. “It’s hard to think this was—and is—the venue for so much upheaval.”

  “I know what you mean.” Martin took the shopping bags and a blanket from the trunk. They made their way up the steps and she unlocked the door. “We’ll bring peace to the place, you’ll see.” They entered.

  They dropped their shopping off in the kitchen then headed out into the grounds. Martin draped the blanket over his arm. Claudia guessed his intentions and smiled.

  A newly established herb garden occupied a quarter-acre plot at the rear of the house, easily accessible from the kitchen. They walked along the path, hand in hand, Claudia loving the feel of Martin’s strong clasp in hers. She thought of cashing the rain check promised back in the office and smiled. Her husband met her eye and winked. You can read my mind!

  “Yes,” he said, and she laughed.

  “You can’t possibly know what I’m thinking!”

  “Oh, I can.” He kissed her hand. “In a little while, lover. Let’s take a look at the ruin and then I’ll cash that rain check.”

  The park around the hall had a number of trees along the boundary forming two copses. All the trees bore fine full growth in the heat of summer, but Claudia could see through some gaps and beyond the wall to a distant cluster of rooftops nestling near a wood. “Could that be where Tilly Waterfield lived? High Wood Farm?”

  Martin shaded his eyes and followed the line of her finger. He nodded. “It looks a likely candidate. I’d guess it’s a half-mile or so. Close enough to see smoke from the hall’s chimneys. Ah, here we go,” he added, pointing ahead.

  The fake ruin proved to be a series of stone walls, none of them higher than three or four feet, emerging from the grass. The tough dark green furze bushes known in England as gorse surrounded it but had been cut back for several feet. Their buttery flowers filled the air with a pungent aroma. Claudia identified the faux chapel from its cruciform configuration, and Martin pointed out where pretend ruins of ancillary buildings had been built. They walked together into the center of the chapel, where a long rectangle of turf had been cut then relaid.

  “This must be where bad Sir George’s body lay all these years.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.” Martin closed his eyes and tipped back his head. Claudia waited silently, knowing he communed with whatever atmosphere inhabited the place. After a few moments his face took on a puzzled expression. He opened his eyes. “Odd,” he said, looking around. “I’m not feeling anything here.”

  “There should be something?”

  “Given the fact a body lay here, and the age of the place, there must be something, some sense of the people who lived and died around here.” He shook his head, perplexed. “There’s not even a feeling of sanctity. I feel nothing but age.”

  “How can this be?” She sat on a low, mossy wall.

  “The general said not everything here is what it seems.” Martin gestured around them. “This may be one of the things he referred to.”

  “So, we do…what? Take a closer look at it? Search the archives?” Claudia sighed, closed her eyes and tilted her head back to let the sunlight play on her face.

  Martin stepped closer and brushed back her hair. “Yes, and yes.”

  She opened her eyes and smiled at him. “And after that, we cash the rain check?”

  “You’re incorrigible.” He grinned.

  “So incorrige me!” Claudia smiled as her pussy grew moist with anticipation.

  Martin looked around with approval. “I’ll do that. It’s nice and sheltered, and we won’t be disturbed.”

  “Oh, I’ll disturb you all right!” She hitched up her skirt and tugged her panties down. “I’ll be glad to get these off. I’m soaking wet for you already.”

  “That’s what I like to hear.”

  All awkwardness forgotten, he spread the blanket on the sweet-smelling grass. The green ancient Mackenzie plaid blanket had been a present from him to her, “just because,” and she treasured his t
houghtfulness. Pulling her light summer dress over her head, she felt the cool soft breeze on her skin and shivered with delight. Martin’s gaze fell to her breasts. She’d gone braless, anticipating the chance to make love and not wanting to delay for one unnecessary minute in fumbling with clothing.

  “You like?” She winked.

  “Damn straight!” he growled in a good attempt at a Hoosier accent.

  She put her hands on her hips and studied him. “You’re wearing too many clothes, mister.”

  “And you still have your sandals on.”

  She laughed and kicked them off.

  Martin undressed, and she helped speed up the process, practice making perfect as she unfastened and unzipped and untied until he was naked. She practically pulled him to the ground, and he gave a soft oof as she wrestled him onto his back, delighting in his hot, hard body. Kissing him on lips, cheeks, firm jaw, and throat, she straddled his hips and reached for his cock. Not that she needed much guidance, as Martin had grown hard and long, his cock nestling against her butt crack. Placing it against her pussy lips she began to lower slowly onto him.

  “Dear God, but I love seeing my cock disappear inside you!”

  “I can tell you it looks fantastic to me.” It looked good, and it felt damn fine as his rock-solid manhood slid inside and stretched her in the most delightful way. Her knees pressed into the soft ground beneath the blanket. She dropped lower and lower until he filled her completely and her butt rested on her heels. “Ooh, that feels wonderful!”

  Martin’s hands came up and began to cup and caress her breasts. Unwilling to delay any longer, she began to ride him, clenching her pussy about his cock, rising up and sliding down his length, feeling the first shivery sensations spreading throughout her belly. Bracing her hands against his broad chest she shook the hair out of her face and grinned down at him. “Suits so far?”

  His face wore an expression of half-pain, half-ecstasy she had come to know so well. “Oh, yeah!”

  “Remember telling me once this position used to be known as ‘riding the bishop’?”

  “Uh huh. The saying came from the resemblance an erect cock has to a mitered bishop.”

  “And it was said if a woman got pregnant this way and had a boy, he’d grow up to be a bishop?”

  “Yup.”

  She glanced down at the blanket. “Well, when the time comes and we want to start a family, we can make love this way on my clan’s tartan again.”

  He cocked his head and looked puzzled. “Don’t follow.”

  “Marty, this way, if we have a boy, maybe he’ll grow up to be a chieftain of the Mackenzies.”

  He shook his head and groaned theatrically then clasped her about the waist and began to thrust up into her, hard. She laughed and gasped with glee.

  Before too long, all reason fled from her mind. The wonderful loving man lying between her thighs, his every effort geared to pleasuring her, and the feel of the sun and wind on her skin, made her giddy. She rose and fell, adding a twist and a grind and a bump now and then, each movement shooting a new sensation of sheer pleasure through her. Martin’s hands tightened around her waist, holding and supporting her while using his strength to help her plunge onto his cock. Her breathing turned hoarse, and the blood pounded in her veins. Her juices and sweat laid slick between them, and she moaned in the back of her throat as she pushed her pussy hard against him. Her clit rubbed against his pubic hair, new pleasure flaring with every stroke, until she felt the sudden surge of heat and light rise up and engulf her.

  Perhaps people far out across the fields heard her cries and knew them for what they were, but Claudia didn’t care. Martin roared, his cum spurting into her in hard, fierce jets as another fiery orgasm blasted through her mind. Jerking and shuddering, she strove to wring every last sensation from their union until, sated, she fell forward into his waiting arms.

  They lay twined together, the soft breeze playing over them. Claudia toyed with her lover’s cock as it grew flaccid, feeling the stickiness from his cum and her juice. Martin sighed with pleasure, and she brushed her cheek on his chest. “Marty, I’d like to start a family. I feel the time’s right.”

  “So do I,” he replied drowsily, teasing a curl of her hair between his fingers.

  “Now all that worry over the sub-prime mortgage crisis is over, I think we can take care of little ones. We’re financially stable.”

  “You’ll go off the pill from now on?”

  She rolled over and put her chin on his chest so she could gaze into his eyes. “Oh yes, and we should go at it like rabbits as often as we can when my cycle’s right.”

  His lazy grin filled her world with warmth. “We certainly can. I’ll enjoy making babies with you, Claudia Mackenzie-Grey.”

  She kissed him, and he took her in his arms and rolled her onto her back. Claudia giggled then blinked as Martin looked to where the nearest wall lay close to her head. “Ah, that’s odd,” he murmured.

  “What?” She craned her neck to see what he looked at.

  He reached out and ran his finger over a seam in the stonework, close to where it emerged from the soil. “This came into my eye-line just as I rolled you over. I’m sure it’s Portland cement.”

  “I’m more interested in importing your semen at the moment, but do go on,” she said in an attempt at a British accent.

  “Portland cement wasn’t invented until the early nineteenth century, quite a while after this pretend priory was built.”

  “So, someone made repairs to the place.” She paused. “Actually, that doesn’t sound right.”

  “Exactly. Why repair a ruin—especially a fake ruin? Wouldn’t further deterioration add to its charm and tourist value?”

  “You’re right about that. If you want folk believing this place is the real thing, weathering would make it more acceptable in the public’s eyes.”

  “There’s more.” He pointed at a suspect area in the wall. “They didn’t take much care to get their architecture correct. The stumps of the mullions—the stone spans of the windows—are cemented onto what should be the base of the sill. The stone’s weathered on the carved underside and not the top, so it had to have been an older piece of stonework built into the wall, because you’ll notice everything is mortared into place. Now I know what to look for, I can see several pieces of stonework lower down which aren’t positioned correctly. It may be built out of old stonework, but it’s still a fake. One wonders where the original stones came from—an actual priory that may have stood on this spot or nearby?”

  “Possibly.” Claudia stared for a moment before remembering what they were doing. “Something to think about later,” she said, as she felt his cock stirring against her belly. “Where were we?”

  Chapter 8

  In spite of his urgency, Paul made only reasonable time to Cambridge after being stopped by the cops for speeding just north of York. The loss of acting work, his fright in Newcastle, and the speeding ticket combined to make him feel in a particularly foul mood when he drove up outside Alex’s flat. He mashed his thumb on the intercom button by the door. “It’s me!” he snarled when Alex answered. “Let me up.”

  The door clicked, and he went inside, stamping up the stairs as if the treads were the faces of his enemies. Alex greeted him at the door with a nervous smile. “What’s wrong?”

  He glared at her. “Every fuckin’ thing!”

  She held the door open and stepped back, allowing him inside. “Can I do anything to help?”

  “I need to get back in Jules’ good graces.” He pushed the door shut and took her by the hand, leading her into the sitting room. “It’s the only way I’m going to get out of this.”

  Alex looked puzzled. “Why? Get out of what?”

  He closed his eyes. “I’m…overextended on a loan,” he said reluctantly. “If I can wangle enough cash out of Julia I can cover my problem, okay?” He poked her between her breasts. “You’ll have to help.”

  “How?” She frowned and loo
ked at him askance. “I hope you don’t want to rob her!”

  Paul bit back on speaking his thoughts. Yes, you silly cow, I do! “Not rob, exactly. More like use a bit of creative accountancy, you know what I mean?”

  “I don’t handle her finances like that. All I do is…oh shit.” Her jaw dropped. “You want me to mess with her credit cards?”

  He cocked his finger like firing a pistol. “Bingo!”

  “Oh, Christ, Paul!” She walked over to the sofa and collapsed onto it, her hands on her face. “That’s just wrong!”

  He knew instinctively she would not yield to browbeating or violence. Instead he went over and dropped to one knee. Taking her hands he looked up imploringly. “I really need help, Alex. You’re the only one who ever cared that much about me. I can’t get out of this without you. We’ll do this then go away together, you and I. How about that?”

  He could see her melting under his charm. Fuck, I should get an Emmy for this!

  Alex nodded and gave him a weak smile. “They’re kept in the office safe when I’m not using them on Julia’s behalf, but I’ll do what I can.” He began to exult inside, but she held up her hand, and he saw a dangerous glint in her eye. “You’ll have to do something for me, though.”

  She released his clasp, got up and went through to the bedroom, returning in a moment with a pair of handcuffs dangling from one finger. She leaned on the doorpost and gave him a saucy look, jingling the cuffs expressively. “You were very rough with me when you were here. Now I get to be rough with you!”

  His heart sank. A ghostly voice seemed to chuckle in his ear.

  * * * *

  “We’ll have to do some more research,” Martin said as they made their way back to the hall. “There’s supposed to be an old priory on this site. If it isn’t that fake ruin, it has to be somewhere else. We need to find out where and when it was established.”

  The intercom buzzed. “Someone’s at the gate,” he said.

  “You go see who it is, I’ll make tea.” Claudia reached for the kettle. “It’s been an hour or so since you had a cup.”